I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: February 27, 2020] Sarah Harmer

I don’t remember when I first heard Sarah Harmer.

I think it was back in 2000 with her first album You Were Here.  (She has an album that she recorded before it but it wasn’t officially released until later).

You Were Here had the song “Basement Apt.” which was a reasonably big hit.  I also checked out her previous band Weeping Tile who are unjustly overlooked.

Harmer put out consistently great records, including I’m a Mountain, a bluegrass album that is totally awesome.  It took her five years to release the next album, Oh Little Fire, because she became an environmental activist and performed music mostly in guest roles.

Now it’s been ten years since Fire and she is back with a new album called Are You Gone.

She told us that this was the second night of her tour–a warm up for the big times in Canada.  Sarah had a four piece band with her.  She introduced them twice and I couldn’t make out a single name in the bunch.  But I was able to look them up.

Although I had hoped there’d be a lot of older songs that I love, the set was primarily from the new album.  Of course that makes a lot of sense.  And it’s great that the new release continues her streak of excellent albums.  Of course, she didn’t play every song on the new album (again, why leave out any songs? Those two poor songs were “Wildlife” and “Shoemaker”).

She opened with the opening song on the new album, “St. Peter’s Bay” and it set the tone for the night–beautiful melodies in the song and wonderful harmonies from her keyboardist Kelly McMichael and her drummer Dani Nash.  And Sarah’s voice sounds fantastic!

I was pleased that she didn’t play the new songs all up front.  The second song was “Late Bloomer” a beautiful song from Oh Little Fire.

Then a crew member brought out her electric guitar and she asked if anyone had been to any protests lately.  She played her new single, the ripping “New Low.” (which is about protests). It’s a bit of an unlikely single since it sounds nothing like the rest of the album, but it sounded fantastic here.  There’s some great lead guitar sounds from Gord Tough, who was a little too far away to see clearly, but his sound was perfect.  Gord Tough also plays with Kathleen Edwards whom I would love to see!

Switching back to the acoustic guitar she played a few more songs from the new album, like the beautiful “Just Get Here” which she said was about a house where musicians hang out and live and build a culture and “What I Was to You.”

Sarah had a quick discussion with the band and they went off set list to play “Don’t Get Your Back Up.”   This song is a great capule of her songwriting–a thoughtful song with unexpectedly catchy parts that sneak up on you and won’t leave your head.

I was also pretty excited that she played “Greeting Card Aisle,” a song on her 2004 album that I had forgotten about.

Then it was back to the new album with “Cowbirds” and “Take Me Out.”

Gord and Dani left and it was just Sarah, Kelly and bassist Zach Bines for the next song.  She introduced “Little Frogs” by saying that she found a list of things that she had written a long time ago and thought she could make a song out of that.  Incidentally, I saw Bines play bass with Weaves, and I enjoyed his sound quite a lot back then too.

She thanked everyone for coming and introduced the band and then said, okay now it’s your turn to talk (we were very quiet during the show).  This evidently meant that people should make requests.  Some tool shouted “Freebird”–can we please end that, please!  But when someone shouted out “Basement Apt.” she considered playing it right then, but then decided that she didn’t want to mess up the rest of the band, so they’d stick to the setlist.

That meant two more new songs, “Squeaking Voices: and “The Lookout.”  Then it was back to Oh Little Fire for “The City.”

Then after a little discussion with the band, they decided to play “Basement Apt” and it was great to hear it sound so good.

Sarah talked a little about the environmental activism she’s involved in and talked about the Indigenous People’s rights protests happening in Canada right now.  She also raised an arm for Bernie! which received a good amount of cheers.  She said she got a mixed reaction to that in Virginia, but Philly was all seemingly all behind her.

She told us that she could have gone to Barack Obama’s inauguration but chose not to (I assume as one of the thousands on the mall, not as a guest, because who would pass that up–but also, how would she know him?)  But she says she won’t miss the next one (I love her optimism).  This was all as an introduction the song “Washington.”

The band left for a short encore break and Sarah came out alone. I gather that the first encore song was meant to be Sarah solo, since the band didn’t come out with her.  She said she didn’t have a plan of what to play next so the requests came fast and furious.  I rarely say anything, but I had to request “I’m a Mountain.”  I thought my request was very clear and it was the last one before she said she would do one of them.  She called the band back out (no solo song for us). But instead of my song, it was the lovely “Uniform Grey” from You Were Here.

She stayed on You are Here for “The Hideout.”

Then she ended the set with the new song “See Her Waving” a lovely, mellow song that works really well as a set closer.

Even though I feel like the last song should be a banger, this quiet ending was quite lovely.

And then, with no fanfare, the band left.  We actually weren’t sure if there might be another song, but nope, that was it.

The set was about 85 minutes–pretty short.

She could certainly have played a few more songs.  But I’m totally fine that she didn’t because, the set was wonderful and since it ended so early I was home by 11:30, which was fantastic!

Thanks Sarah, welcome back.

SETLIST

1. St. Peter’s Bay ∇
2. Late Bloomer ∅
3. New Low ∇
4. Just Get Here ∇
5. What I Was To You ∇
6. Don’t Get Your Back Up ¥
7. Greeting Card Aisle £
8. Cowbirds ∇
9. Take Me Out ∇
10. Little Frogs ∇ (Sarah, Kelly McMichael and Zach Bines only)
11. Squeaking Voices ∇
12. The Lookout ∇
13. The City ∅
14. Basement Apartment ¥
15. Washington ∅
    encore
16. Uniform Grey ¥
17. The Hideout ¥
18. See Her Wave (For Jacqui) ∇

¥ = You Were Here (2000)
£ = All of Our Names (2004)
∅ = Oh Little Fire (2010)
∇ = Are You Gone (2020)